His 15 minutes of fame is replayed every March, the little guy with the long last name having the balls to take a shot no one takes that buried No. 1 overall seed Kansas. A year later, when Ali Farokhmanesh ended up with an Austrian pro team, his new teammate Davor Lamesic welcomed him in broken English, declaring, “You are the Kansas killer!”

Farokhmanesh, now an assistant coach at Colorado State, is still very much known for the shot in March 2010 that rocked the sport. Only enough time has passed that the players he recruits now find out about it from their coaches and then head to YouTube. It’s almost like they never imagined the guy recruiting them with the unordinary last name and everyman look — a barely 6-foot white guy — could really be an NCAA Tournament star.

And it’s that doubt, once shared by college coaches, that is the story worth retelling. Sure, the shot was awesome. But the journey to get there was even more remarkable.